Justices will consider greenhouse gas rules

Sunday

Feb 23, 2014 at 12:01 AMFeb 23, 2014 at 10:04 AM

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration's drive to regulate greenhouse gases could hit a snag at the Supreme Court this week as industry groups and Republican-led states ask justices to block what they call a "brazen power grab" by the president's environmental regulators.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s drive to regulate greenhouse gases could hit a snag at the Supreme Court this week as industry groups and Republican-led states ask justices to block what they call a “brazen power grab” by the president’s environmental regulators.

The Environmental Protection Agency adopted regulations in 2011 that require new power plants, factories and other such stationary facilities to limit carbon emissions.

The agency said the rules were justified by a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that held that carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — seen by some as culprits behind a warming planet — are air pollutants subject to EPA regulation under the Clean Air Act.

In that decision, four conservative justices dissented, insisting that the law covered only air pollutants that make it hard to breathe, such as smog, not those that trap solar energy in the atmosphere and might contribute to climate change.

Now, the dispute is back for Round 2 in the Supreme Court in a legal fight over how far the EPA can go in adapting the 1970s-era anti-pollution law to the 21st-century issue.

It is also a political fight. Texas, Florida and 15 other Republican-led states joined with business and energy groups in accusing the president and the EPA of overstepping their authority. California, Illinois and 13 other Democratic-led states joined with environmentalists in supporting the EPA’s rules.

The case to be argued on Monday asks only whether the EPA may restrict greenhouse gases from stationary sources.

In Obama’s first year in office, the EPA set in motion rules that require new motor vehicles to burn less gasoline and reduce carbon emissions. Those rules were upheld when the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge against them. Obama last week announced new limits on carbon emissions from trucks and buses.

But when the EPA tried to expand those rules to stationary facilities, industry leaders and Republican-dominated states argued that the agency had gone too far. Justices agreed last year to consider six different appeals of the rules.

Typically, stationary facilities would include power plants, but the challengers said the regulations could potentially extend to millions of others.